Poverty is prevalent in the small-farm sector of many developing countries. A large literature suggests that contract farming —a preharvest agreement between farmers and buyers— can facilitate smallholder market participation, improve household welfare, and promote rural development. These findings have influenced the development policy debate, but the external validity of the extant evidence is limited. Available studies typically focus on a single contract scheme or on a small geographical area in one country.
In the existing literature, the effects of contract farming on household welfare were examined with mixed results. Most studies looked at single contract types. This paper contributes to the literature by comparing two types of contracts – simple marketing contracts and resource- providing contracts – in the Ghanaian oil palm sector. We investigate the effects of both contracts on farm income, as well as spillovers on other household income sources. We use survey data collected with an innovative sampling design and a control function approach to address possible issues of endogeneity.
Agrifood systems are powerful levers for improving livelihoods. They must also address an array of systemic challenges, including satisfying growing global food demand, improving diets, limiting greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to a warming climate, and sustaining the environment. Technology and innovation play a central role in meeting these challenges. This brief offers two policy recommendations to support the contribution of innovation. First, G20 countries should increase political and financial support to agrifood systems research in developing countries.
The process of adopting innovation, especially with regard to precision farming (PF), is inherently complex and social, and influenced by producers, change agents, social norms and organizational pressure. An empirical analysis was conducted among Italian farmers to measure the drivers and clarify “bottlenecks” in the adoption of agricultural innovation. The purpose of this study was to analyze the socio-structural and complexity factors that affect the probability to adopt innovations and the determinants that drive an individual’s decisions.
This paper synthesizes literature on the relationship between food supply chains and children's and adolescents' diets and food accessibility. A scoping review was used to identify 47 original studies and seven review articles covering an additional 106 original studies. Studies were primarily cross-sectional and case studies, and most focused on younger children.
Though extension services have long since proved their value to agricultural production and farmer prosperity, their record in sub-Saharan Africa has been mixed. To study the impact of such programs on farmers' learning about agricultural technologies, we implemented a quasi-randomized controlled trial and collected detailed panel data among Malawian farmers. Based on those findings, we develop a two-stage learning framework, in which farmers formulate yield expectations before deciding on how much effort to invest in learning about these processes.
Since development agencies often implement interventions through collective-action groups such as farmer cooperatives and self-help groups, there is a need to understand how participation is affected by group-level and leader attributes. This study collected gender-disaggregated, quantitative and qualitative data on sixty-eight self-help groups in Zambia to understand the participation of men and women farmers in different crop-production activities. Results show that participation rates of men and women are the same across all maize production activities except harvesting.
The profound changes in European policy for farms advisory services (FAS) require a period of experimentation and results observation before the new CAP 2021-2027. This paper focuses on Measure 2 of Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2014-2020. The paper is focused on the description of case studies in three Italian regions: Campania, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto. Different Measure 2 – sub-measure 2.1 models are analyzed through a qualitative approach, using a conceptual framework adapted by Birner et al. (2009).
The core idea of the article is the existence of complicated array of deterrent factors that influences innovation activity of agriculture organizations, and subjective, psychological factors among those factors as well. The main goal of this work is to assess the top management and proprietors’ of AIC enterprises readiness to implement the innovations. As a research’ working hypothesis used the decisive role of human factor in answering the question whether to innovate or not.
Innovation platforms are fast becoming part of the mantra of agricultural research and development projects and programs with an innovation objective.